The problem isn’t the package managers, and what they do install. Because I can always go back and get the latest.
The problem is when I have stuff I have downloaded individually, I want this stuff, and stuff I make myself, and binaries to reside somewhere safe for the packet managers.
I also want to be able to diversify, so I know that the stuff in that particular bin folder is something I have downloaded, and maybe performed a custom build on by myself.
I want this to be as hassle free as possible, and avoid having to edit man-paths and such, so that when I change Operating System, I can just copy over my bin folders, what I have made and installed individually, but rebuild from the packet managers. (I have given up on /opt/local and /usr/local for installing stuff).
So, I am thinking of using the ~/bin and ~/man ~/src folders for the stuff I make myself. ~/share/bin ~/share/man ~/share/src for stuff that I make and that I share, ~/opt/bin ~/opt/man ~/opt/src for stuff that I have gotten from individual sources. I will also install whole packages residing in a subdirectory under this structure if it needs to.
I’ll also have my own ~/etc, and redirect any writes from tools residing in my home folder structure to this folder.
I wonder if anybody can see anything that I have forgotten, something that may go wrong or have a better way.
It is intentional that it will only work for that single user. That makes it easy to migrate it, and keep control with it.
That’s a weird sentence. When I go to another OS I like to re-install those applications rather than just moving them. For instance when the OS uses the iconv library supporting unicode 5.1 and the next OS supports unicode 6.0 then I would like to install the utilities with libraries installed on that mac. But I agree that it would be nice that there was something like Yast2 for the Mac, that is what I use to update and control my unix tools on my server(s).
This is not for iconv and the like. Much of the stuff is not supported anymore, and isn’t updated in any way for Mac Os X, so I am happy to just keep it, and not have to go back and inspect what I have to copy item by item, more than this once!
It is more for bsearch for instance, that searches through a file, the hoc calculater, or battleship, or empire, all kinds of unix tools that are not in the standard installation, and that I have gotten/chosen to install individually. Like some of the newest tools from Gnu. Mostly individual tools I might have built from a package, (a tarball, not a package that is installed.)
I tend to rebuild what I get from package managers, It is is also easy to reinstall what is shipped with a Mac Os X installer. This is really about having a system for individual binaries, that I have built, or installed manually by myself.
I don’t want to run around the whole block, to download again, if something overwrites something else. I don’t think I have any control of what is under the /usr/local and /opt/local directories anymore, at all.
So I move this stuff inside my home folder with the hope that it is left in piece. The second objective is being able to differentate between the stuff from the various sources, and have easy access to manual pages and so on.
